


Changes

by ReverendKilljoy



Category: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Genre: Dancing, F/M, relationship status
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-04-25
Updated: 2005-04-25
Packaged: 2020-10-10 08:29:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20525006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReverendKilljoy/pseuds/ReverendKilljoy
Summary: I like the idea of a Warrick/Catherine relationship. So much potential there, and they are both VERY decorative physically. I mean, come on, and imagine the children!





	Changes

“Catherine, stop for a second.”

His voice, so smooth, so strong, like a single malt scotch, started a slow burn a few inches below her navel that radiated outwards. Catherine Willows stood, her fingers on the buttons of her white cotton blouse, her slacks already kicked off by the bedroom door.

She looked at Warrick, propped on one elbow on her bed, his shirt open to his belt, his jeans still on but his long tapered feet gleaming darkly in the soft light. His naked feet were somehow more provocative to her than the expanse of smooth sandalwood chest exposed by his shirt. Maybe it was because she saw his chest a lot, with his wardrobe, but until they had become lovers the previous month she had never seen his bare feet before.

She stood, waiting, almost dreading. Despite her passion, despite the longing she felt for him, despite every instinct in her body, her mind was already jumping ahead, knowing how this was going to end. Some things don’t change.

“Go ahead, Brown,” she growled softly, trying to stay sexy, trying to show him she wanted him. “I know what you’re going to ask, so let’s get it out of the way.”

She rocked her head from one side to the other and flipped her hair over her shoulder. She knew, knew from long and profitable experience that her pose, one hand on the buttons between her breasts, the other at her hip, one knee slightly bent, the opposite hip bare where the shirt rode up… she knew this pose was striking, enticing, modest yet as sexual as intercourse itself. It was the beginning pose of a million strip routines, and he was staring at her with a hunger she recognized too well.

“You know?” His voice didn’t betray his surprise, but she saw his eyebrows arching, his high forehead wrinkling as he appraised her. “So, you understand why I need you to stop for a minute.”

“Sure.” She knew this moment was coming. A lot of men in her life had reached the moment, the moment where their passion had cooled just a bit, and their interest peaked just enough. They would look at her and see, not the woman she was, not the person she was, but the dancer, the stripper she had been. And every time, she saw them shift that gear, that mental mode that men seem to have and women lack, where they could turn off their ability to know her as a person, and they desired her performance.

“Dance for me,” she would hear them order, or ask, or beg. They need not have bothered. They always asked eventually, and she always complied. It was too easy, too easy to surrender to the training and the skills she had honed as a dancer, even as a part of her died inside. When she became their dancer, their girl, they became another customer, another anonymous user, and nothing was ever quite the same again.

“I need to hear you say it anyway.” She waited, wondering how he would phrase it, how he would make what they had into something else, something exciting and new for him, something infinitely old and familiar to her. She didn’t drop her smile, her sexy posture, or her sultry demeanor. She waited for the slug in the gut, and knew that Warrick was a good guy, a really good guy. It was still worth seeing him, even sleeping with him, after he asked her. She just wanted to know how much it was going to hurt.

“It’s not easy for me to ask you,” he said, turning to put his feet on the floor and rest his elbows on his knees. She watched his bare toes grip the carpet nervously for a moment, and then she looked back to his face.

“It’s okay, Brown,” she told him, taking a step forward and placing her hands on his shoulders. She felt him lean into her, turning his head to press his cheek to her stomach, his arms wrapping around her and putting warm pressure on the small of her back, and on her ass beneath the tails of the cotton blouse. “Just ask me. It’s really okay.”

He nodded, and held her, still and close, for a few more moments. She looked down and realized his eyes were closed. One of his hands was on her bare hip, and the warmth of his touch and the vaguely spicy smell of his cologne or shampoo or just his natural pheromones, something warm and challenging all at once, was making her nostrils flare and her skin flush.

Maybe he would find some new way to ask her, “Show me. Show me what you were, what you know, what you are.” Some way that did not leave her broken inside, and remembering all their days divided forever into what was before, and what was after.

“Catherine,” he asked, his face still turned and his arms tight around her, “do you love me?”

She was glad she was leaning on him, and he on her. The room spun once and she swayed against his arms. This wasn’t it- this wasn’t how it happened, not to her.

“Dance,” he should have said. “Be that woman. Show me. Thrill me. Let me know you that way, the way you used to be.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, wondering how long he had been holding her and waiting for a reply.

“No, it’s okay,” he said quickly, too quickly. He took a deep breath, and when he pulled back she could see on his face a smile, broad and grand, that said everything was fine. It was a liar’s smile, a hurting smile. And until tonight, it had always been her smile.

“Warrick,” she told him, dropping to kneel in front of him, her hands still on his shoulders, “I meant I’m sorry I didn’t answer you. I was surprised. I was expecting… You’re never what I expect.”

“Yeah, sorry about that.” He looked a little embarrassed and a little sad, but still so beautiful to her. She kissed him, and it was not the kiss she had planned when she saw him on her bed minutes before. She kissed him with hunger, with passion, with grace. She kissed him with respect and desire and with love.

“I do love you, you know,” she said at last.

“I hoped so,” he admitted, “but sometimes, I wondered if you were just enjoying yourself, just happy to be happy. I didn’t want to mess things up if that was it.”

“You didn’t. You couldn’t.” She ran a hand over his cheek and looked appraisingly into his eyes, so lively and wise and sad for such a beautiful young man. “There’s nothing wrong with just being happy, having fun. But I’m realizing that’s not what we’re doing here, is it?”

“I know your past has been rough, that the men in your life haven’t been guys you could count on.” He looked down and rested his forehead on hers. He continued softly, “I don’t want to be one of those guys, Cath. I like you. I think I love you, and being with you…”

He searched for the words, and she hung on to him and let him find them.

“I want to be the one guy you can just be yourself with, and who loves you for who you are.”

“That was the most amazing thing any man has ever said to me, Warrick. Well, that I actually believed. You keep that up, and I just might make it worth your while.”

She tipped his head up and kissed him. He kissed her back, and it was different, deeper, and somehow more alive. Dorothy had stepped off the porch into Oz, and their kiss was Technicolor now. He slipped off the edge of the bed, and they were both kneeling, arms around each other.

“Worth my while, huh? I’d like that,” he told her.

“Who knows,” he added with a wink, “maybe some time I’ll get you good and silly drunk, then I’ll dance for you.”

“You- For me?” She blinked at the outrageousness of it, at the total inversion of her life in the last half hour. “You know what? That, I’d like very much to see.”

The time for talking was over. She began pulling at her buttons as he slid out of his shirt. To her chagrin, and despite her head start, he was naked before she was, and laughed at her as she struggled free of a shirtsleeve. Some things do change.

-fin-

**Author's Note:**

> I’d never really written any CW/WB stuff before, but this was my first try. Feedback is always appreciated and sometimes enshrined. Oh, and never let anyone tell you lap dancing is easy. Based on my experiences working in a few clubs, two girls who have the same about-average looks, where one knows how to lap dance and one doesn’t? Try a $2500/week difference in take-home pay, as much as $5000 difference if she’s in a good club with regulars. And I spent 11 years at university... *grumble*


End file.
